Faculty

Profile Dr. Lan Kolano is Professor and Chair of the Department of Middle, Secondary and K-12 Education. She completed her Ph.D. at UNC-Chapel Hill and has been on UNC Charlotte’s faculty since 2004. Her research focuses on the language and identity development of immigrant learners and the development of critical multicultural efficacy of teachers. Dr. […]

Profile Dr. Joan Lachance is an Associate Professor of Education and serves as the Program Director of the undergraduate and graduate Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) programs at UNC Charlotte. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses focused on Second Language Acquisition and Authentic Assessment with English Learners. She also works closely with teacher […]

Profile Dr. Chance W. Lewis is the Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Urban Education and serves as Director of The Urban Education Collaborative at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He completed his Ph.D. at Colorado State University in 2001 and joined the faculty in 2011. He leads the urban concentration of the […]

Profile Dr. Adam Myers is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Middle, Secondary, and K-12 Education. He has served as a faculty member since 2016. He earned his Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction in 2013 from Gardner-Webb University. As the department advisor in MDSK, he assists candidates in determining and maintaining an academic […]

Profile Dr. Premkumar Pugalenthi completed his degree in Curriculum and Instruction in Mathematics Education (2019) from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and has both a bachelors (2009) and masters degree (2012) in mechanical engineering. His dissertation, Integration of Engineering in a Middle Grade Mathematics Classroom: A Conceptual Framework for Science, Technology, Engineering and […]

Profile Dr. Spencer Salas is Professor of Education in the Department of Middle, Secondary, and K-12 Education at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he leads the Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction Urban Literacies/TESL sub-concentration. An award-winning District of Columbia Public School ESL teacher (1994-2001), he has been a Fulbright Fellow to Romania […]

Profile Elonda Steele is the Business Services Coordinator (BSC) for the Department of Middle, Secondary, and K12 Education. She has over 15 years of experience and has been a part of the Cato College of Education since 2015. Elonda completed her Master of Arts in Information Technology Management/ Business & Organizational Security at Webster University […]

Profile Dr. Michelle Stephan is an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education. She has a joint appointment in the Department of Middle/Secondary Mathematics and the Mathematics Department at UNC Charlotte. She taught middle school mathematics in Florida for seven years before joining the College of Education. She teaches middle and secondary mathematics methods classes and provides […]

Profile Dr. Nicholas P. Triplett is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Education in the Department of Middle, Secondary, and K12 Education. He earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction (Urban Education) from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2018. Dr. Triplett was a former high school social studies teacher, a facilitator at non-traditional […]

Profile Dr. Greg Wiggan is Professor of Urban Education, Adjunct Professor of Sociology, and affiliate faculty member of Africana Studies. His research addresses school effects that promote high achievement in urban and other minoritized students. He has completed more than 100 publications, inclusive of over 30 education books. His work appears in more than 70 […]